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Landmark status sought for Majestic Crest

LOS ANGELES, CA — The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission has recommended that the art deco Majestic Crest in Westwood be given Landmark status. The theater opened in 1940 and underwent major renovations led by Joseph Musil (who later redid the El Capitan theater) in 1987 that transformed it into a neighborhood gem.

The theater, half a mile south of UCLA, features Art Deco Revival architecture and an elaborate hand-painted interior mural that pays homage to Hollywood’s gilded age. The city’s Cultural Heritage Commission has recommended that the Crest be declared a historic-cultural monument, and a key Los Angeles City Council committee is expected to support the nomination today. Those actions are expected to clear the way for approval by the full council.

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But the strong desire to recapture the vibrancy of old helps explain why some neighborhood activists who battled to scale back the Palazzo now view it as a possible saving grace.

The 4.3-acre complex, with 50,000 square feet of retail, will soon welcome a Trader Joe’s, a drugstore, a coffee shop and two eateries. And for the first year it will offer two hours of free parking to the public.

“I remain concerned that it’s a very dense project,” said Laura Lake, a longtime activist. “On the plus side, hopefully, there will be people all the time in the village.”

Hopefully there will be a upswing to Westwood Village; enough to keep the Village and Bruin open as theatres after Mann drops the leases. My hope is that another chain takes interest in the two theatres and perhaps does a smaller scale multiplex complex adjacent to one of them. With the demise of the National, Plaza, Mann Westwood and United Artists theatres the acceptable seat count is there.